Tours Down By-paths
HE other night John Reid took onepoem poets as his subject in his weekly "By-paths of Literature" series from 1YA. He began with a defence of anthologies for théir role of preserving poerns by people who have only once in a lifetime written something worthy of. immortality. There is an amazing number of these, from Omar Khayyam, which is long enough to have a life of its own outside anthologies, through poems the size of Thomas Dekker’s "Sweet Content" down to the magical single line, "a rose-red city, half as old as time," which is all we know of the lifé-work of an ambitious poet and cleric. Mr. Reid caught my sympathetic attention at the outset by wondering, as I have often done, what on earth "A garden is a lovesome thing" is doing in all these august anthologies. There is a dry, caustic quality about Mr. Reid’s voice .and style which is better suited to gentle debunking than to revealing beauties and imparting enthusiasms.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19450406.2.21.2
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 302, 6 April 1945, Page 10
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168Tours Down By-paths New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 302, 6 April 1945, Page 10
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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